


memories like this never end, no, they don't fade away

by eynn



Series: i can't go back and lose it all [12]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Nobody Dies, also shmi is somewhat force sensitive fight me, everyone is worried about ahsoka, shmi and plo are everyone's parents, sith!jedi order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23457928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eynn/pseuds/eynn
Summary: Shmi Skywalker wakes up on a bed next to her son. The room is quiet and dim, filled with the sound of soft breathing.She goes to sit up – her head hurts a little, and she knows she’ll have bruises all up and down her back, but she’s had worse and she can deal with it just fine – and Barriss startles to attention, jumping to her feet.
Relationships: Plo Koon/Shmi Skywalker
Series: i can't go back and lose it all [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658362
Comments: 11
Kudos: 896





	memories like this never end, no, they don't fade away

Shmi Skywalker wakes up on a bed next to her son. The room is quiet and dim, filled with the sound of soft breathing.

She props herself up on an elbow and looks around. Anakin is still under sedation, but he looks well enough. Padmé is curled up on her side, propped up front and back by an impressive collection of pillows. Shmi winces. Padmé is tiny and even with all the care she is getting, she has to be uncomfortable with how close she is to giving birth.

On the other side of the room, Obi-Wan, Kit, and Saesee are lying, heavily bandaged but alive. Poor Kit almost looks like a corpse with how wrapped up in bacta-soaked bandages he is. Saesee’s head is similarly covered. She can’t tell what is wrong with Obi-Wan, but something about him seems off.

Aayla and Rabé are gone, but young Barriss and Luminara are sitting in chairs near the door. Luminara is slumped over with her head resting on her folded arms on a small table in front of her, sleeping. A blanket has been thrown over her back. Barriss is awake, but she looks exhausted and her arms are wrapped in bandages.

Shmi can see someone else there, curled up on the floor under the table, but she can’t make out who it is.

She goes to sit up – her head hurts a little, and she knows she’ll have bruises all up and down her back, but she’s had worse and she can deal with it just fine – and Barriss startles to attention, jumping to her feet.

“Master Shmi!” the girl half-whispers, racing over to sink to her knees beside Shmi’s bed and grip her hands tightly with her bandaged fingers. "Oh, Master Shmi, I’m so glad you’re awake. Are you all right? Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine, little one,” Shmi says, the endearment coming automatically to her lips as she looks into Barriss’ puffy blue eyes. “Are you all right? What’s happened? Did we – did we lose anyone?”

“We almost lost Master Kit, but he’s going to be all right after all,” she answers, still holding on to Shmi, unconsciously sinking closer into her robes like she’s still a crecheling. “Master Obi-Wan, he lost his arm. Master Tiin almost got his head taken off, but he just has a bad gash. Master Ti –” her voice cracks. “She might not make it.”

Shmi squeezes her hands and lets her take her time.

“Sidious threw them back, he sort of held them there and just . . . that’s when he took Obi-Wan’s arm, he pushed Shaak out of the way when he was carving her up and took it when she should have died.”

Shmi wraps her arms around Barriss and holds the girl tightly as she trembles.

“And he said – when we finally pinned him down and he was dying, Sidious, he said –”

Barriss sniffles miserably and then buries her head in Shmi’s lap. “He said to tell Master Skywalker to say hello to Ahsoka, he called her Snips, we have to save her, he must have gotten to her after she got thrown out, I don’t even know where to start looking, she could be anywhere –”

Shmi holds the girl’s hand as she scratches at her own arm, leaving angry welts on her skin.

“He wouldn’t stop talking so I made him stop,” she chokes. “I took off his head and he stopped. But now I don’t know where Ahsoka is and I can’t even ask him because I fucked it up. We could have made him tell us if I hadn’t let my anger control me.”

The only thing Shmi can do is hold Barriss and run her hands soothingly over her back, letting her grieve.

How had it come to this, that the safety of the Republic depended on a war fought quite literally by children?

~

Masters Windu and Secura come to check up on her a few minutes later. They run gentle fingers over the bruises on her back and the gash on her head, and she feels them using the Force to heal them a little more.

Aayla holds Barriss for a while as Mace examines Shmi. Neither of them are technically healers, but they’re the closest thing available, and both of them have spent the war learning battlefield medicine.

Shmi watches Aayla rub circles on Barriss’ back and rock her back and forth, assuring her that she won’t abandon her just because she let her anger and fear get to her during a very stressful situation, and has more hope for the survival of the Jedi, in whatever form they have become now, than she has since she first arrived at the Temple.

Shmi is Force-sensitive herself, not nearly as much as her son, but on an equal with most of the children she has cared for as they mature and become padawans. She was never found by them when she was young, and she’s learned to keep her shields tight around her like a bodysuit to keep her own sanity and her safety.

After Anakin was born, it was even worse; she thinks that whatever happened to make her conceive him with no memory of a father and no missing time that would suggest something forgotten has stuck with her. She knows she’s more powerful now that she was before. She just isn’t trained and has never tried to actively use her powers for anything more than concealing them.

She can understand what Mace is doing as he heals her bruises and coaxes the gash to close just a little more, knitting the skin back together. Shmi takes mental notes, memorizing how it feels and how he’s directing the energy flowing from his fingers.

“How is Master Ti?” she asks as Mace relaxes a little, the hardest parts that require concentration done.

His already serious face grows grimmer. “Yoda and Feral with her now. We are – we have to – hold her together long enough for the healing to take. At first we thought she merely had shallow saber burns, but it was more than that. Some Sith torture method, we suspect.”

Shmi notices for the first time the splashes of blood on both his and Aayla’s dark robes.

“Who is Feral?”

A small smile appears briefly on the corner of his mouth. “A new ally we have made. Darth Maul’s youngest brother. He knows more about healing than we do, and since he was one of the ones who actually killed the Sith Lord, we decided to trust him with helping us try to save Shaak.”

“I thought Barriss killed him?”

Mace nods. “She delivered the final blow, as well as saving Obi-Wan and Commander Cody from being killed by him while they were unarmed. Feral shot him in the side and crippled him long enough for the Commander to get in a chest strike with his own weapon, and Barriss to get a good grip on the chokehold she had him in.”

Shmi looks at the girl’s bandaged arms with new realization.

“Yes,” he murmurs, following her gaze. “There was some backlash from the power he was channeling when he died, and she was in close contact with him at the time. The Commander was also injured, but his brothers are taking care of him.” A faintly puzzled look creases his eyes. “It’s very strange. Individually, they are hardly Force-sensitive at all, but together, they are quite powerful.”

She squeezes his arm gently. “I feel well enough to watch over these ones,” she suggests as he stands up. “You’ve been fighting and you’re all tired. Let me help.”

He nods. Aayla passes Barriss back to Shmi. She’s a little less distraught, but still clings to her.

After they leave, Shmi moves a chair over to sit by Kit, as the most injured, and Barriss curls up on the floor, wrapping her arms around Shmi’s legs like a youngling, refusing a chair for herself.

“Who is that?” Shmi asks, getting a clear look at the person on the floor by Luminara for the first time. It’s a Zabrak, but she doesn’t recognize him.

“That’s Savage,” Barriss yawns. “He and I were protecting Feral during the fight while he did this awesome thing where he can make himself invisible and look around for any traps or extra weapons the Chancellor could have used on us. He wanted to help but he doesn’t know anything about healing, so he’s in here in case we need a messenger.”

Shmi eyes the large, heavily armed man warily, but he is sleeping with his head on Luminara’s feet and that is very disarming.

She turns her attention to monitoring the injured. If Barriss and Luminara are comfortable with his presence, so is she.

~

Plo comes in to see her not long after. He looks exhausted, and his robes are mildly smeared with blood. She guesses he has also been taking a turn trying to help Master Ti survive.

But his eyes – his whole face, really, even under the breathing mask – light up when he sees her sitting up, awake and doing well, and he comes over to give her a side hug, careful of Barriss sleeping curled around her knees.

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” he murmurs into her hair, his voice a low rumble. Shmi kisses his wrist. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you before now. I was assisting in keeping Shaak alive.”

“It hurts a little, but it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. Masters Windu and Secura were kind enough to stop by when I woke and heal me a little more. How is Master Ti doing? They told me she nearly died.”

He sighs, sitting gingerly on the edge of Master Tiin’s bed, careful not to disturb him. “She will live, but it was a very close thing.” He runs a distracted hand over his face. “I don’t know how to describe it. We were losing her, the blood loss was too great and there was some kind of foulness permeating the wounds, but then the Commanders came in, with all the men they could fit into the room, and they –” he shrugs, at a loss for words. “They are her children, and they called her back from passing into the Force.”

Shmi just nods and leans against him, enjoying the feel of his arm around her shoulders. She knows that there are some things in the universe that cannot ever be explained, and that they should just be appreciated instead.

“I learned a little more about that strange creature we fought,” Plo says after a long, peaceful silence in which they just breathe together, savoring the fact that they both are alive. “Sidious gave its name as Darth Vader.”

“Another Sith, then,” Shmi whispers, and then flinches. “I mean, not that a Sith is always a bad thing, now –”

He laughs softly and nuzzles the top of her head. “I know what you mean, beloved. We are having the same problem ourselves. We are no longer Jedi by the Code, but neither do we lust for power and cruelty. But that is a small problem compared to the ones we face now.”

She looks up at him inquiringly.

“Vader was clearly Sidious’ apprentice, after Dooku betrayed him. Dooku had no idea they even existed. But Vader is powerful, and we fear that they are now in control of the Separatist armies. The Republic is in turmoil from the evidence we have presented about the Chancellor’s treachery and even though Bail and Senator Mothma are doing what they can to provide leadership in the interim, things are still uncertain. We thought that since Sidious was also controlling the Separatist side of the war, they would be disorganized as well, but it hasn’t seemed to have affected them.”

Shmi is quiet for a while, digesting this. Plo doesn’t usually speak so much at one time, so he must be worried.

“I thought that Sith who believe in the Dual – what is it?”

“The Rule of Two?”

“Yes, that – I thought it was only expected that Sidious would have an apprentice after Dooku left.”

“It’s not that, entirely, that worries us.” Plo hesitates, tapping his claws nervously on his leg. “We think that Vader has Ahsoka. That could expose a lot of our secrets.”

Shmi holds him tighter.

“Sidious’ last words were to tell Anakin to greet her. He called her Snips. He also said that he had ensured he would take Anakin with him in death, Shmi.”

Shmi looks over to her son. He’s still sleeping peacefully.

“Maybe him not being there made that impossible. Or he was just trying to bluff.”

“He was dying. There was no way he could survive two chest wounds at close quarters like that, and from what I understand, Feral was holding a blaster to his head and Barriss her lightsaber to his throat. He knew he was dying. What possible reason could there have been for him to bluff about killing Anakin if he died?”

“Well, Anakin is just fine,” she says, more confidently than she feels. But she knows that Plo has his breaking points, and one of his most vulnerable is his family. He’s never said a word about presuming Anakin to be his son as well as hers, but she’s not unobservant and she can feel how he feels about her son.

One of the things that makes her love him more is the unconditional love he extends to her son. Even if she was gone, she knows that Plo would watch over him.

“And now that Sidious is dealt with and the clones have Force powers, we can find Ahsoka. We won’t have to fight the Senate anymore, or be afraid of letting each other know that we love each other.” She looks pointedly as Barriss, half-on and half-off her lap, and at Luminara with Savage curled around her feet. “At least that much good has come out of this.”

“Yes,” Plo says, also looking at them. “We have no more secrets from each other now, and that has made us so much stronger. At least, no truly important secrets. I still have no desire to know the, ah, details of Aayla and Bly’s marriage.”

Shmi snorts a surprised laugh.

“She has been quite relieved at no longer have to pretend not to care for him.”

“Oh dear.”

“I hate thinking of little Soka being held by that monster, Shmi,” Plo whispers. “She’s – I would have never wished her to be captured and –”

“Hey.” Shmi runs her hand gently over his face, careful of his mask. She rarely does it for exactly that reason, and it successfully catches his attention. “Have you thought that Sidious’ words might have meant that she is dead?”

Plo stares at her.

“I don’t mean to break your heart again, my love, but he did say that he intended to take Anakin with him in death, and at the same time told him to greet her? How else could that be interpreted?”

Plo is still and quiet for so long that Shmi fears she has messed up badly. But then he exhales, and wraps both of his arms around her shoulders. “I – that shouldn’t be a comfort to me,” he says, voice breaking. “But to think that she is at peace, at one with the Force, not being tortured somewhere and believing we will not come for her because she was expelled from the Order. I – is it terrible of me that I would rather think her dead?”

He buries his face in her shoulder, carefully, and she runs her hands over his back.

“Whatever has happened, I know you will not let her be forgotten,” she says, resting her chin on his head. “I know you, Plo, and you will go to the ends of the galaxy and beyond for the ones you love. And I will be beside you. We will find what has happened to Ahsoka, and we will bring her home.”

**Author's Note:**

> guess who got animal crossing new horizons last week? me. i've been fishing in all my spare time. it's great.
> 
> oh and i also posted a smaller crackish oneshot about how things would have happened if obi-wan had just had hysterics on mustafar instead of being a Controlled Jedi Master and fighting anakin. it's called 'greetings, chosen' if anyone's interested.


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